'A bit of feedback from the field'....and I'll apologise here and now if I start
rambling. I do anticipate writing this over a couple of days...and at least for
me, being a bit selfish, it's my take on RS ownership X 2.

Ok, the day before I collected the new car I gave the .2 RS a good final squirt
before I put into storage for the summer. So for those interested, hopefully
I can give a reasonable comparison of old against new for fast road usage.
For a track day comparison i'm not going to really know 'where it's at' until the
next DN trip which is a month away.

I actually felt guilty covering the car up and pulling the garage door down on
the old war horse...'why are you leaving me down here ?'...genuinely i was
pretty sad....pathetic really. I simply haven't got the space for another car and
for insurance purposes it has to be garaged...hey ho. So older brother is 35 or
so miles away.

Right, so how do they compare ?...neither car likes slow running, even the
new one feels 'old' in the transmission stakes. At low speeds it's got the same,
very individual ''chuntering' noises which GT3 owners know so well. Kind of
made me smile when I first pulled out of the showroom..I thought, 'that's nice
at least the car retains that 'basic feeling of being raw'. Once you get up to
speed and left in drive it's as smooth as silk and incredibly easy to drive.
Obviously, PDK equiped cars are unbelievably user friendly in town/city driving
and this one is exactly the same. Where as the old RS is pretty much hard
work in stop start driving the new one is a revelation. My only gripe is that to
ease away from a standstill when cold, in forward or reverse, the new one
requires a lot more revs than the old manual car, and it's a bit of a waste of
petrol and quite an irritation.

Get out onto an open road, stick it in manual mode, and use the paddles, wow
it's an amazing piece of kit !.The turn in is just plain and simple right up there
on the 'ridiculous level' and aligned with the rear wheel steering it makes
the new car feel 'small'. The older .2 RS is just as much fun, but in a different
way.The older car has more steering feel, that is without question, as you feel
every road ripple in a well geo'd old RS.
However, quite simply cannot compete with the wider track and larger front
rubber on the new car (265's on the 991 and 245's on the 997). Ok, I'm not
saying that steering feel isn't there on the 991, because it does have guite
exceptional feel, the steering is very positive and the car exudes 'confidence'.
It's very, very good and it's very precise...I suppose electrics just can't quite
replicate the hydraulic feel of the older 997. And I'm sure that the wider the
front tire is...the 'connected feeling' is quantifiably slightly less so.

I recall the Sept 2014 BAT Imola/Mugello trip when Senoj, NXI20, Disco and
myself first came across the then 'new 991 GT3' on track...
They were clearly quantifiably a lot faster than any of the previous generation
cars. In a straight line it was at times an absolute revelation just how quickly
they piled on the speed. I've never driven the 991GT3, but the RS shares the
same PDK sport feature and packs a wider front and rear track, wider rubber
and 25 extra ponies along with an extra dollop of torque...

When given its head, the acceleration in standard drive mode is honestly more
than adequate, and on a par with my 2.RS. Stick it in PDK sport mode, the
car switches into a totally different, what I would call an 'urgent I mean real
business mode' and it shifts down two gears.
When the loud pedal is mashed to the carpet, a near volcanic eruption occurs
and you get unrelenting, pure, unadulterated acceleration..it's really quite
awesome and gives you the biggest grin ever !....and boy, it's highly addictive.
Allied to the response of the PCCB's and the higher turn in speeds, it makes
a fast cross country run a huge amount of fun. Is it more satisfying to drive
fast on a cross country road than the .2 RS ?...no, imho I'd just say that it's a
different experience. In the 997, to drive it quickly across fast, sometimes
tricky cross country roads requires a good deal of concentration and dare I say
it a bit of know how. When you're done and you're out of the car, it's hugely
satisfying and very rewarding, because it was a challenge. The new one is a
a fair bit quicker, yes, it's a lot of fun..but more fun ? for now I'd just say that
it's technically, a big leap ahead and an easier car to drive fast and it's just very
...'different', but in a very exhilarating way !.
_________________981 Cayman GT4 Club Sport
991 GT3 RS 2016
997 GT3 RS gen 2 2010
997 GT3 gen 2 2010
997 carrera 4s cab, power kit
993 carrera 4 cab
964 carrera 4 cab
911 carrera
911 sc sport
911 sc sport targa

Last edited by nick w on Thu Jun 23, 2016 9:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

Just like the hi fi in the old one....lol. There's so much transmitted road noise
it's always been a waste of time even having a hi fi. Although, this time around
I paid for the digital radio, so at least it'll be somewhat clearer for the sports
commentaries on 5 live lol.

Subjectively, it'll take a trip to our favourite place to determine how and where
the new car differs from the old one on track.
One thing that I have absolutely no doubt about, is that the new car has the
ability to go at warp speed point to point on fast roads with less effort than
the old car....and yes, you still get that buzz when you get out of the car !.

At the Ring....
I managed to blag a spot on one of the wider 'high vehicle' carriages by
simply driving into the wrong lane and telling the barrier operator that the risk
of damage to the alloys was just too great in the standard carriage. After a
ticking off (I had the wrong ticket, should have had a chevron on it ?) she
thankfully let me through.
As I left two hours earlier than the other two reprobates (figured that at 6.00
am, the wider carriage would be less crowded) I drove at the slowest speeds
that i've ever driven down enroute to the Nordshliefe, stopping four times in
order to let the boys catch up. Pretty embarrassing really....well to be fair it
was a good call as the car wasn't properly run in. The number of times cars
would slow down, windows then would open and someone would be hanging
out of the car with a smart phone phone videoing....lol...what a cringe.

Anyway, we hooked up at Spa, then drove the rest of the way in convoy, the
final 45 minutes on the best of the roads, in simply appalling weather.

Ok, on the Nordschlife.....after a couple of sighting laps it was obvious to me
that this was going to be a one day only big 'reset'. Every corner you arrive at,
you're arriving there a bit quicker, as the car accelerates so seamlessly using
the paddles manually. The mental adjustment, having two rather than three
pedals, and this might sound odd but in the morning I found difficult to adjust
to not having the 'other' pedal.
Not putting my left leg on the clutch to engage a lower gear, letting it out..
feeding the car into the braking area, then braking, turning in, accelerating
out of the corner then replicating the process again, and again.

Then the brakes, wow ! even more stopping power....410mm rotors at the
front once prodded do make a difference over the 380mm rotors on my old RS.
I found it hard to find my braking points, so I ended up on the corners where
you do need to brake..Aremberg, Bergwerk, Steilstrecke, Karussell either
braking too earlier or too late, and invariably not braking hard enough...so
much to take in on one day !.
With hindsight, what I should have down was bed the car in on a regular track
day before attempting the ultimate sensory rush at the ultimate place.
But given how often the car is used, running it in prior to a regular track day
would have taken me way too long..

There is also no doubt that this new one has serious extra grip on the front
end...the cars ability to turn in and grip is right up there. So much to learn
with this new rocket ship, it's truly mind boggling..and the next two day DN16
trip simply can't be here soon enough.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou can attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forumYou cannot post calendar events in this forum